Posts Tagged ‘MPs’

This is an angry, impassioned rant by Kevin Logan against the gross social injustice of Tory Britain that has produced the Grenfell Tower fire. Logan’s a male feminist, who makes vlogs attacking the Alt-Right and Men’s Rights movements and their lunacies.

Logan begins the video by discussing the fire itself. He mentions how Grenfell Tower is an area of low-income housing in Kensington, one of the richest places in Britain. As it is a pocket of low class housing – he calls it ‘slum’ – amidst extreme wealth, the local council decided to cover it in cladding, so that the richer residents wouldn’t have to look at it. The fire spread rapidly because this cladding was inflammable. The disaster was entirely avoidable, as fire-proof cladding was only an extra £2 per unit more expensive. Thus it would have cost a mere £5,000 more to protect these people from the horror that engulfed them.

He also queries the official figures for the number of victims. At the time he made the video, the official death toll was 30. This, he states, will be revised upwards. It may well go over 100, and some have suggested that the real figure will be over 300. We don’t know at the moment, as the government has decided that it’s politically sensitive and so have slapped a D notice on it.

He lays the blame for this tragedy firmly on the Tories, and specifically David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. George Osborne is responsible, as he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who launched the Tories’ austerity policies. David Cameron was the Prime Minister, who stated clearly in 2012 that he was against the culture of health and safety. He therefore was determined to repeal the ‘red tape’, which means the laws actually protecting humans beings. And Theresa May is responsible because she cut emergencies and the number of fire stations in London when she was in charge of the Home Office. As for Boris Johnson, he made the situation worse by cutting the number of counsellors available to help fire fighters get over the horrors they’ve seen. There were 14 of them before he took office as mayor of London, and those weren’t enough. But Boris then went and reduced them to two.

Logan states quite clearly that austerity kills. Not just through cuts to the emergency services, but also in cuts to hospitals and the welfare state. He also states that this country needs to decide what it is. Either we’re a nation too poor to afford to give decent cladding that will protect people for a mere £5,000, or we’re a nation so rich we can afford to give billions in tax cuts to millionaires. Not to mention the fact that we’re spending another £100 billion on nuclear weapons. He states that he isn’t going to get into the debate about nuclear weapons, only that apparently we can’t afford to feed and shelter the poor, but we can find money for nuclear weapons, and bombing brown folk elsewhere in the world.

He also informs his viewers how Jeremy Corbyn attempted to introduce legislation to protect people in poor quality housing, but 311 Tory MPs voted against it. This included 80, who were private landlords. This was a massive conflict of interest, which should never have been allowed to happen. And the media are complicit in it because they have remained silent on it.

Over half of the video is Logan discussing patriotism, and the question, often asked, whether he is patriotic. He states that when a tragedy like this occurs, no, he can’t be patriotic. Not for a country that cares more for the rich, than to spend £5,000 stopping poor people from being burned alive – or, rather, killed by smoke inhalation, in their beds. He states very clearly that there needs to be riots about this, and for those responsible to be properly prosecuted. He doesn’t know where legal responsibility for this tragedy lies, with local council or elsewhere, but a large number of people need to be prosecuted, far larger than a small number of sacrificial lambs. He states that corporate manslaughter needs to be taken far more seriously in this country. The politicians responsible should be given absolutely no peace until they either resign or pass the necessary legislation to protect people against further tragedies like this.

He also predicts that the Tories will find some way of tricking people out of their homes. They’ve said they won’t, and that the residents will be rehoused in the borough, but they will do it anyway. Logan states that it is wrong that there are people, who are homeless, while there are mansions, owned by the rich, that are going empty. The people made homeless by the fire could be housed in them, and the state could pay for their accommodation. But this won’t happen, because the rich always come first.

He says that he isn’t interested in what we claim to be, or what we were, but what we are and will be, before he will say he’s patriotic. He doesn’t hate the country, but we have to stop being a Tory vassal state. And Theresa May needs to go. If, however, we want to be a country where the rich come before stopping the poor die, then as far as he concerned, you can burn the country to the ground.

I agree with nearly everything he says here – about the twisted system of values we have in our society, where the profits of the rich come before human life, and where invading nations in the developing world for the benefit of multinationals is far more important than tackling the poverty back in Britain. As Mike and other disability rights bloggers – DPAC, Stilloaks, Johnny Void and many others have shown time and again, austerity is killing tens of thousands each year. There is absolutely no question about it. And neither should there be any question about who is responsible for this carnage as well. It’s the Tories.

I reject the call to riot, and his angry rejection of patriotism. Rioting only results in local residents having their lives and property threatened and damaged. It doesn’t threaten the politicians and corporations ultimately responsible for the iniquities against which the riots are aimed. And it allows the Tory press to dismiss those protesting as thugs and extremists. We’ve already seen it happen this weekend, when a peaceful crowd spontaneously invaded Kensington council offices to make their voices heard. No-one rioted, there was no violence, and no begging. But that didn’t stop the media and Tory press from claiming there was. All to frighten the millions watching and reading the papers away from supporting them.

As for patriotism, I’m a patriot in the sense that I want the best for my country and its people. There is still much that is good in this country. But its government is mendacious and corrupt. And the very people, who insist that we all be patriotic, are usually those responsible for the injustices that mar it. Like the Tories under Thatcher, who made much about how they stood for Britain and patriotism. Or the right-wing nationalists in the NF, EDL, BNP and similar organisations.

There’s a lesson here for the Alt-Right on why many people in the West don’t feel patriotic. According to the Alt-Right and similar right-wing ideologues, it’s all due to ‘cultural Marxism’. The Frankfurt School has undermined western self-confidence in order to destroy its culture, and place everyone under the Communist heel. It’s also because of ‘cultural Marxism’ that feminism is making such inroads to the point that men are being treated unjustly.

No, ‘cultural Marxism’, if it even exists, doesn’t have anything to do with the rejection of patriotism by many in the contemporary West. It’s gross injustices like the Grenfell Tower fire. Decent people are outraged by a social system that has gives such massive, disproportionate power to a rich minority, and has allowed the poor, non-Whites and women to be mistreated and oppressed. But I very much doubt that this obvious fact will make much impression on them, as they’re not going to listen.

Binoy Kampmark, one of the contributors to Counterpunch, has put up a very interesting piece on how the Saudis have managed to influence British foreign policy through a mixture of bribery, business connections and threats. He describes the very extensive gifts and consulting fees given to various Tory MPs, and notes the close connections Blair’s New Labour also cultivated with the head-choppers in Riyadh. May’s government has also profited massively from selling arms to Saudi Arabia to use in their war in Yemen. It’s why Philip Hammond, the Tory foreign secretary, decided to accuse the Iranians of being the principle sponsors of global terror.

But the regime has also used threats. When Blair threatened to investigate the corruption scandal surrounding BAE, the head of the Saudi national security council turned up in London to threaten another 7/7.

The situation is very different under Corbyn. Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry says she wants to conduct an international inquiry into Saudi atrocities in Yemen. This would mean suspending arms sales to the theocratic absolute monarchy. He makes the point that Thornberry is very much following Robin Cook’s stated intention of establishing an ethical foreign policy. Despite that, New Labour abandoned any sign of actually doing this once they got into power. Just as the abandoned the talk about stopping the privatisation of the NHS and the erosion of the welfare state.

But Thornberry means what she says, and this will terrify the Saudis, who will hope for a Tory victory.

Kampmark writes

‘The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia always knows when it’s onto a good thing. That particular “thing”, in the few days left before the UK elections, is the May government. That same government that has done so much to make a distinction between policy and values, notably when it comes to dealing with Riyadh.

The United Kingdom has been a firm, even obsequious backer of Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen. In the traditional spoiling nature of British foreign policy, what is good for the UK wallet can also be good in keeping Middle Eastern politics brutal and divided. The obscurantist despots of the House of Saud have profited, as a result.

The Saudi bribery machine tends to function all hours, a measure of its gratitude and its tenacity. According to the register of financial interests disclosed by the UK Parliament, conservative members of the government received almost £100 thousand pounds in terms of travel expenses, gifts, and consulting fees since the Yemen conflict began.

The Saudi sponsors certainly know which side their bread is buttered on. Those involved in debates on Middle Eastern policy have been the specific targets of such largesse. Tory MP Charlotte Leslie was one, and received a food basket totalling £500.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond is another keen target of the Kingdom’s deep pockets, having shown a willingness to defend mass executions in the past. “Let us be clear, first of all,” he insisted after consuming the Kingdom’s gruel on why 47 people were executed in January 2016, “that these people are convicted terrorists.” Four of them, including Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, were political protesters as well, but terrorists come in all shades.’

‘Attempts to shine a strong, searing spotlight on corrupt practices, notably those linked to BAE, have been scotched, blocked or stalled. One such example, a chilling one given the recent spate of attacks on civilians in the UK, involved a disgruntled Prince Bandar, head of Saudi Arabia’s national security council, threaten Prime Minister Tony Blair with “another 7/7” should a fraud investigation into BAE-Riyadh transactions continue.

High Court documents in February 2008 hearings insisted that the Prince had flown to London in December 2006 to give Blair a personal savaging laced with ominous promise: stop the Serious Fraud Office investigation, or expect London to witness a terrorist inflicted bloodbath.’

‘The picture is not a pretty one when shoved into the electoral process. But then again, the May wobble and turn may well justify such a relationship on terms that Saudi security and power is preferable to other authoritarian regimes. These big bad Sunnis are the good Muslims of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Such splitting of hairs doesn’t tend to fly well from the stump and the Tories might well attempt to keep things as quiet as possible. The Saudis, on the other hand, will be wishing for business as usual, praying that the threat of a Corbyn government passes into the shadows of back slapping Realpolitik.’

The message here is that the Saudis are not our friends. They are ruthless, self-interested butchers and despots. They have corrupted our politics, and have no qualms of sending terrorists to kill and maim innocents when it serves their purpose. Just like they did on 9/11.

It’s time their malign influence was firmly brought to heel. Saudi terrorism must be stopped. And a very good start is Jeremy Corbyn’s stated policy of stopping British arms sales to them.

Vote Labour on June 8. They’ll be tough on terrorism, and tough on the causes of terrorism.

Mike’s put up a series of post these last few days about various Tory MPs, whose views on certain issues are controversial. Or actually, abhorrent. One of these was Philip Cuthbertson, the Tory MP defending the marginal seat of Darlington. Cuthbertson wrote a series of blog posts in the 2000s defending a Swedish priest, who had been jailed for preaching against homosexuality, and attacking the presentation of evidence in rape trials.

Cuthbertson was against men accused of rape having to prove that the woman consented to sex. He also wanted the ban on discussion of the sexual history of women making such accusations removed.

As Mike points out, it shouldn’t matter if the victim was promiscuous or not, if she didn’t give her consent, it’s rape.

There’s also the further danger in that Cuthbertson’s attitude leaves women, who have had multiple sexual partners, vulnerable to the attitude that they are worth less than other women, and that somehow, as they’re promiscuous anyway, their consent isn’t really needed.

It’s a very, very dangerous attitude.

May defended Cuthbertson, claiming he had changed his views. Mike states that there’s no evidence of this, and no blog posts have been adduced to support it.

Which leaves it very much open to doubt whether he has, and whether May is lying again.

And then, after a fake Twitter account purporting to be from the Tories accused poor people of spending all their money on drugs, alcohol and gambling, a Tory MP was forced to leave a hustings meeting after he showed he held much the same attitude.

Mark Pritchard, the Tory MP for Wrekin in Shropshire, went off a rant at the audience, saying that some of them ‘had let themselves down’, and accused people using food banks of having 58″ TVs and smoking £10 packets of cigarettes.

The audience, understandably, weren’t impressed, and gave him the slow handclap until he left.

Lucy Allan, the Tory MP for Telford, who also holds disgusting views, wasn’t at the hustings either. She claimed she hadn’t been invited. This was another lie. It seems that the lying and cowardice that afflicts May is spreading. As the Russians say, ‘A fish rots from the neck down’.

Also in yesterday’s I newspaper was a piece by Adam Burnett, ‘Corbyn Is Not Treated Fairly, Says Dimbleby’, in which the host of the Beeb’s Question Time attacked the media’s bias against the Labour leader and said it would be wrong to rule him out of winning the next election. The article reads

Veteran BBC host David Dimbleby has blasted the “lazy pessimism” of the media’s election coverage, saying Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has not been given a “fair deal” by the press.

The Question Time chairman, who will host the BBC’s election night coverage, said Mr Corbyn has “a lot of support in the country”, and given the “political somersaults of recent years, it would be a mistake to count Labour out.

“It’s a very odd election”, said Mr Dimbleby, speaking to the Radio Times. “The interesting thing is that a lot of Labour supporters really like and believe in the messages that Jeremy Corbyn is bringing across.

“It’s not his MPs in the House of Commons necessarily, but there is a lot of support in the country.

“And I don’t think anyone could say that Corbyn has had a fair deal at the hands of the press, in a way that the Labour party did when it was more to the centre – but then, we generally have a right-wing press.”

He added: “My own prediction is that, contrary to the scepticism and lazy pessimism of the newspapers and British media, it’s going to be a really fascinating night, and it will drive home some messages about our political system and the political appeal of different parties that no amount of polling or reading the papers will tell us.”

Of course, Question Time has also shown it’s own bias at times against Corbyn and the Labour party. And under Blair, New Labour was not a centrist party. It was, in its determination to privatise the NHS, the education system, and throw millions off welfare benefits, a right-wing party, just as the Tories are now. And the Tories in their determination to destroy the welfare state, which began in earnest under Thatcher, are far right when compared to the post-War consensus in all parties to support the NHS and welfare state, and maintain full employment.

Dimbleby’s right to attack the media’s bias against Corbyn, even if some of it seems like he’s trying to whip up interest in his own election night programme by saying that the outcome isn’t a foregone conclusion. But he’s wrong about it being ‘lazy pessimism’. It’s deliberate lies and fabrications, by a media and political class that are desperately afraid that Corbyn will succeed in undoing forty years of Thatcherism, and create a genuinely fairer and stronger Britain.

The right-wing media, including Beeb, and its paymasters come from the upper middle class, which have done very well thank you under Thatcherism. They have profited from the tax cuts and massive expansion in power and wealth achieved by grinding the other 75 per cent of the population down with increased taxation, the destruction of the welfare states, the privatisation of state industries, including the NHS, stagnant wages and zero-hours contracts. They, and the businesses they head and manage, have profited immensely from a cowed workforce, who are forced to work for poverty pay.

It is because Labour under Corbyn threatens this, that they have responded with lies and smears.

Tonight Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are both going to be interviewed by Paxman as part of the Beeb’s series of interviews with the party leaders in the run up to the general election. I found this video yesterday of Jim Hacker giving advice to Bernard on how to handle interviews with the media. The hero of ‘Yes, Minister’, and ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ advised

If you have nothing to say, say nothing. Better still, have something to say, and say it.

Pay no attention to the question, just make your own statement. Then if they ask the question again, you answer the question you want. If they ask you again after that, you say, ‘That’s not the question. The real question is..’, and then go on to make your statement.

Intercut with this is footage of the classic interview of Michael Howard by Paxo on Newsnight way back in the 1990s, when Michael Howard was the head of the Tory party. This was when Paxo’s interviews were something of a blood sport and hapless politicians found themselves demolished by his persistent questioning. Such as his repeated questioning of Howard whether he overruled a Tory colleague.

Paxo has said since then that he feels bad about this interview, as he went in much harder that he needed to be. The interview looked like it was going to end before the show’s time, and so the producer told him to keep Howard talking. And unable to think of anything else, Paxo savaged him for not answering the question.

Hacker’s advice to politicos and civil servants facing the media is still relevant. You can see them using it. MPs, cabinet ministers and even Theresa May herself will refuse to answer the questions put to them, and carry on making the same statements they want to make. As for May, she’ll adopt an awkward chumminess with the interview, as she did with Andrew Neil. She tried calling him by his first name, ‘Well, Andrew…’ before repeating ad nauseam her mantra of ‘strong and stable’.

Again like Hacker in one of his interviews with the Beeb in ‘Yes, Minister’, where he adopted the same fake chumminess, calling the interviewer by his first name.

‘Yes, Minister’, however, was a satire intended to mock and show up the bureaucracy of the civil service and the pretensions and incompetence of government officials and civil servants. Hacker’s interview advice was effectively the writers’ way of telling the audience how politicians try to wriggle out of answering questions they can’t handle.

In the case of Theresa May, it looks very much like she learned the technique, but hasn’t mastered it. She is not at ease with interviews, just as she does not like meeting the public. When she appears on interviews, she appears stiff and awkward, and when she uses this technique, it actually looks like something she’s been consciously taught and is trying to remember, like a school pupil trying to remember what the teacher said to him about techniques for public speaking. And, sooner or later, my bet is that she’s going to use this technique tonight.

Corbyn, by contrast, has been savaged by the media despite the fact that he does give them clear answers. They just don’t like what he tells them. All this stuff about not letting people starve, giving people decent wages and benefits and trying to create a fairer society. Which is why they’ve smeared him as a Trotskyite, just like they tried to paint Ken Livingstone as a Communist way back in the 1980s.

As for Theresa May, not only does she use Hacker’s interview technique, she’s even worse at it than Hacker, who was supposed to be a rather bumbling figure, something of an innocent, whose efforts to reform the civil service were constantly being stymied by Sir Humphrey.

The classic comedy series was so accurate in its depiction of Whitehall bureaucracy, that a friend of mine remarked that he now views it less as a comedy and more as a documentary.

Unfortunately, Theresa May and her vile policies are no laughing matter. Hundreds of people have died in misery and starvation thanks to her policies. 200,000 or so people have to use food banks, and 7 million people live in ‘food insecure’ households.

That’s homes where the mother is starving herself to make sure her kids eat, or where they don’t know where the next meal is going to come from.

Buddy Hell over at Guy Debord’s Cat also posted a piece about two weeks ago, asking what has happened to the Tory bullying scandal. The Cat begins

As the Crown Prosecution Services prepares to announce whether it intends to prosecute over 30 Tory “individuals” (sic) for failing to correctly declare elections expenses during the 2015 General Election, it’s worth remembering the other scandal into which the Tory Election Expenses Scandal is interwoven. That scandal is the Tory Bullying Scandal.

It is worrying that for more than a year the entire story has gone quiet. Indeed, a current government minister, a former minister and the party chairman are entangled in its web. A party worker actually committed suicide after a campaign of bullying and intimidation, and a sitting MP was blackmailed for having an affair.

The Cat provides a handy list of the salient facts. These include the following points

In 2014, Mark Clarke was appointed director Conservative RoadTrip2015 by Grant Shapps, the then party chairman. This organization, bussed activists around the country to key marginals. RoadTrip2015 is at the heart of the Tory Election Expenses Scandal.

Clarke threatened to blackmail Robert Halfon, MP over an alleged sexual infidelity.

Elliott Johnson, a young party activist committed suicide after being bullied by Clarke and Andre Walker, whom he regards as a friend. Walker himself was covertly recorded on a train plotting to smear Alison Knight, the deputy leader of Windsor Council with an associate. Walker also claimed to be Johnson’s lover.

There was considerable overlap between Thatcherite group, Conservative Way Forward (CWF), Conservative Future (youth wing), RoadTrip2015 and Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF). It was revealed that Clarke had sexually assaulted several female members of YBF. This forced Donal Blaney, the YBF’s leader to cancel their annual conference. Blaney was also forced to resign from CWF.

The internal Tory Party inquiry found there were 13 alleged victims. The same inquiry, conducted by Clifford Chance, concluded that senior party figures were “unaware” bullying was taking place. Elliott Johnson’s parents condemned the inquiry as a “whitewash”.

The Cat also notes that Clarke and friends also plotted to take over the Corporation of London and that he and Aidan ‘Nazi Boy’ Burley, the former MP for Cannock Chase, also worked together in an organisation dedicated to smashing the unions. He speculates that the links between the various individuals involved suggests that the bullying also included several members of Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Association.

Apart from Clarke and his cronies, in December 2015 it was revealed that Lucy Allen, the Tory MP for Telford, had left bullying messages to one of her workers on the answerphone. She also added the words ‘unless you die’ to a message from someone criticising her for wanting to bomb Syria. Despite this, Allen has never been investigated.

The Cat concludes

This is a scandal that goes right to the heart of Downing Street. But why has this story gone so cold? Could it have something to do with the Conservative Party’s internal inquiry, dubbed by some as a “whitewash”? The corporate media dropped the story soon after the inquiry. Yet questions about bullying in the Tory Party and the connection between RoadTrip2015 and the Tory Election Expenses Scandal persist. Will we ever get to the truth?

He also adds an update from a report in the Guardian, which states that the Tories have not handed a report on the allegations to the cops, despite repeated calls for them to do so.

Just like they haven’t handed over a report into their electoral fraud.

Somehow I’m not surprised that this scandal involved the party’s various youth sections. Some of us can still remember the uproar in the 1980s when the Nazi sympathies of the Union of Conservative Students came out, including their commitment to racial nationalism, their bullying of Tory ‘wets’ during a conference at one British university, their condemnation of Nelson Mandela as a terrorist, and how they used to sing ‘We Don’t Want No Blacks or Asians’ to the tune of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’.

This week it was reported that British Gas were considering raising their prices by 9 per cent. This is frightening, as it means that the other companies may also raise their prices as well. Many people are increasingly finding themselves faced with a choice due to austerity, benefit cuts and stagnating wages. They can eat, and freeze, or stay warm and starve.

I don’t know what the reason given for raising the price of gas is. I suspect, however, from the behaviour of the oil industry, that any justification presented is spurious. William Blum in the chapter on capitalism in his book America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy, shows that the rise in oil prices aren’t due to rising costs. The cost of getting the stuff out of the ground has remained the same, despite all the guff about having reached peak oil. The real cause of the rise in fuel prices, including gas, is financial speculation, and quotes a US Senate report, The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices. This states

The traditional forces of supply and demand cannot fully account for these increases [in crude oil, gasoline, etc.]. While global demand for oil has been increasing… global oil supplies have increased by an even greater amount. As a result, global inventories have increased as well. Today, US oil inventories are at an 8-year high, and OECD [mainly European] oil inventories are at a 20 year high. Accordingly, factors other than basic supply and demand must be examined…

Over the past few years, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investment funds have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets … to try to take advantage of price changes or to hedge against them. Because much of this additional investment has come from financial institutions and investment funds that do not use the commodity as part of their business, it is defined as ‘speculation’ by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC). According to the CTFC, a speculator ‘does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes.’ The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil to be delivered in the future in the same manner that additional demand for the immediate delivery of a physical barrel of oil drives up the price on the spot market… Although it is difficult to quantify the effect of speculation on prices, there is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices. (p. 248).

Blum goes on to make the point that the American financial regulators have been unable to combat these rises, because their ability to do so has been taken away from them by Congress. (pp. 249-50). As a result, although it still costs ExxonMobil $20 to get a barrel of oil out of the ground, the oil itself can trade at $40, $80 or $130 a barrel. (p. 251).

So if you’re worried about paying the gas or heating oil bill, the reason it’s gone up is due the financial sector. The very people that donate to political parties, especially the Tories and employ MPs when they leave.

Kudos and respect this week to the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow. The honourable gentleman spoke this week about banning Trump from addressing parliament if he ever came to this country on a state visit. He stated, quite correctly, that addressing parliament is not a right – it is a reward that has to be earned. He also stated that he would have wanted to have Trump prevented from addressing the lower house even without his ban on Muslims travelling to the US. Millions of ordinary Brits share Bercow’s opinions.

Trump has shown himself repeatedly to be a vulgar egomaniac with a despicable attitude to sexual assault and ethnic minority communities, such as Latinos, Blacks and Muslims. While he may have tried to distance himself from them somewhat, his most vocal supporters and some of his closest advisors are anti-Semites, White Supremacists and just plain neo-Nazis. Richard Spencer and his followers screaming ‘Hail Victory! Hail Trump! Hail our race!’ while raising their right hands in the Fascist salute was a clear demonstration of their real vile political views, despite Spencer’s later attempts to claim that he was ‘being ironic’.

For many millions of people, Trump and his supporters represent a horrible return of some of the Fascism and racist persecution of the 1920s and ’30s. To Brits, Trump and his supporters recall the 1930s when Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists goose-stepped up and down Britain and marched into the East End of London in an attempt to bully and beat Jews, Communists, trade unionists and members of the Labour party.

There is such a thing as the ‘dignity of parliament’, regardless of the less than sterling character or views of individual MPs. Bercow was right to want to have Trump stopped from addressing it.

Unfortunately, many Tories do not share Mr Bercow’s views. Earlier this week Mike posted a piece reporting that, despite earning the praise and support of long term Labour MP, Dennis Skinner, members of Bercow’s own party, the Tories, sat in stony silence.

Now one of the Tory MPs, James Duddridge, has tabled a vote of ‘No Confidence’ in the Speaker. Yesterday he wrote to Theresa May asking her not to impose the whip on her top team if the commons did hold a vote of ‘no confidence’. Now he claims that an increasing number of MPs share his anger, and that Bercow could be deposed before parliament resumes the Monday after next.

This is disgusting, but it doesn’t surprise in the least. The Tories have for a very long time hated Bercow with a passion. They didn’t want him becoming Speaker, as they moaned that he was biased against them. Which probably means that he was trying to be fair and do his job impartially. It also wouldn’t help that he is literally sleeping with the enemy. His wife, Sally, is a Labour MP.

Bercow in his speech denouncing Trump stated that Trump should be prevented from speaking, if the House was serious about combatting racism, sexism and supporting equality. This proposal by Duddridge shows precisely what he, and many other Tories, really think about these issues. Despite Cameron’s attempt to rebrand the party as non-racist, embracing ethnic minorities, gays and promoting women, there is still a large number of Conservatives who clearly don’t share these views. The Daily Mail has consistently attacked immigration, gay rights and feminism, despite the fact that it was originally founded to appeal to a largely female readership. The same kind of attitudes permeate the Express, the Scum and the other Tory rags to a greater or lesser degree. And there have repeatedly been instances where Tory MPs have been caught making extremely derogatory remarks about Blacks, Asians or women.

Parliament is under pressure to reform itself so that it does become more representative of Britain’s diverse society, with more Black and Asian MPs and more women. It is therefore contradictory, at the very least, to give the privilege of addressing it to someone like Trump, with his racist and misogynist views.

Bercow’s principled statement of his intention of blocking Trump from speaking has shown the real nature of the Conservative party as it has brought out their support for Trump, and by implication the grotesque policies and attitudes he represents.

Bercow is to be applauded. Duddridge and his supporters are a disgrace to the dignity of House in which they sit, and their views are an insult to anyone worried about the growth of Fascism and the extreme right.

Mike over at Vox Political has posted another good article, stating that pro-Israel groups should be subjected to a public inquiry after Shai Masot, the senior political officer at the Israeli embassy, was recorded by Al Jazeera TV talking about how he wanted Sir Alan Duncan and other, unnamed MPs, ‘taken down’. Masot made the comments in October last year when he met Maria Strizzolo, an aide to education minister Robert Halfon, and an undercover reporter, referred to as ‘Robin’, in a restaurant.

Halfon is a former political director of Conservative Friends of Israel, and ‘Robin’ was posing as a pro-Israel activist, who had set up the meeting to find out how he could help combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. The meeting, and Masot’s comments, were recorded as part of an investigation by the Arab news agency.

Masot asked Strizzolo if he could give her some names of MPs that he would liked to have taken down. Strizzolo replied that all MPs had something to hide. Masot then carried on ‘I have some MPs. She knows which MPs I want to take down’, and then mentioned Alan Duncan specifically.

He also discussed Boris Johnson, saying he was ‘basically good’, but then qualifying it by saying ‘He just doesn’t care. He is an idiot… If something real happened it won’t be his fault .. it will be Alan Duncan. Duncan is impossible to rebuff… he has a lot of friends’.

The Israeli embassy issued a statement saying it rejects the comments about Duncan, and claimed they were made by a junior embassy employee who was not an Israeli diplomat. Mark Regev, the Israeli ambassador, also apologised and, like the embassy, stated they were unacceptable.

The Foreign Office has stated that they consider the issue closed. The Labour party, however, has rightly demanded an inquiry. Masot has previously admitted that he has set up party political and fake grassroots pro-Israel organisations, like Labour Friends of Israel. Duncan was specifically mentioned as someone the Israelis wanted removed because he has criticised their construction of illegal settlements in occupied Palestine.

Mike in his post asks the questions how many other politicians have also been subject to Israeli interference, how Britain can protect against further interference from the Israelis, and whether the pro-Israeli organisations set up by Masot were responsible for the smearing of Labour politicians on false charges of anti-Semitism. Until an inquiry is held and it’s known how far this rot has progressed, it’s unclear whether any of the claims about anti-Semitism, Zionism or Israel have any validity at all.

This issue of Israeli interference in British political affairs deserves an investigation for several reasons. Firstly, the statement that Masot was a junior embassy employee is rubbish. If he’s the senior political officer, then by definition he’s not one of the junior staff. Secondly, the Israelis have been involved in the internal affairs of the Labour party. The anti-Semitism smears were made against Labour members, who were sympathetic to the Palestinians and critical of Israeli colonialism and brutality. Many of those who made the smears were members of Zionist organisations, such as the Labour Friends of Israel. And one of the leaders of these organisations had been a director in the Israeli embassy.

It’s interesting to see the Labour party demand an inquiry, as this could result in some very unpleasant material coming to light for the Blairites. Tony Blair and New Labour were, according to Lobster, financed through the Labour Friends of Israel, and by Israeli business people through connections arranged by Lord Levy and the Israeli embassy.

And the Israeli state in Britain has previous in interfering in strictly internal British affairs. There was, you will recall, a case a few years ago in which the Israelis were caught over here spying on British citizens in Blighty itself. This is quite contrary to accepted international diplomacy, which prohibits friendly countries from spying on each other. This did not, however, result in any punishment for the Israelis, save the metaphorical ‘slap on the wrist’, because they apologised.

This is in stark contrast to their treatment by Maggie Thatcher, when she caught them spying against Brits during her tenure at No. 10. The Israeli spy base was closed, and I think a whole slew of Israeli diplomats came close to being thrown out of the country. But when they were caught again this century, nothing happened. I have a feeling the incident might have occurred when Blair was in power, in which case he probably didn’t want to sour his own personal good relations with his sponsors in the Israeli state.

It’s also possible to contrast the treatment of this Israeli diplomat, who has clearly been caught trying to interfere with the appointment of British MPs, with all the yelling over the other side of the Atlantic about the Russians interfering in internal American politics. The FBI, CIA and the Democrats under Obama have accused Putin of meddling with the conduct of American democracy through leaking details of Hillary Clinton’s corrupt deals with Wall Street. Despite their claims, there’s no real evidence that Putin was behind the leaks, and the former British diplomat, who took custody of the leaked information, has said that it all came from dissatisfied Democrat insiders.

Beyond this, Shrillary and her team have been claiming that Trump is somehow a tool of Putin because one of his staffers also has business dealings with the Russian president. Hence, some of the more hysterical Democrats have demanded that Trump should be tried for treason. Saturday Night Live, the American comedy show, even had a sketch with Putin referring to Trump as ‘the Manchurian candidate’, in other words, an undercover Russian agent ready to his bidding once he gets into power.

Now compare this outrage, whose basis in fact remains extremely tenuous, with the lack of similar concern and anger over the real interference that this interview implies has been exercised by the Israelis. Strizzolo has resigned, but no-one has demanded to know what connection her employer, Halfon, has in this affair, if any, or how many other British politicians and public servants have been keen to do the bidding of the Israelis against other British politicos. The Israelis frequently try to deflect criticism by claiming that they are unfairly singled out for opprobrium, while other regimes equally guilty of human rights violations are allowed to go with minimal criticism. This episode shows that, when it comes to meddling, or allegedly meddling, in the internal affairs of friendly nations, the opposite is true: Israel is treated far more leniently than other countries.

Here’s another great idea from Bernie Sanders, the self-declared ‘democratic Socialist’, who should definitely be the one to go to the White House next year, rather than Trump.

Remember how Trump was telling everyone at his rallies that if he got into power, he was going to stop the corporations outsourcing their jobs abroad to create more poverty and unemployment in America? Aside from the racism and the islamophobia, it was this promise which may have helped him gain the votes of middle class and blue collar workers, whose jobs are threatened by the neoliberal outsourcing policies championed by the establishment Republican and Hillary Clinton and her clique in the Democrats.

Now Bernie Sanders has come up with a proposal to try and keep Trump to his promise. In this piece from Secular Talk, Kyle Kulinski discusses the report in the Huffington Post that Sanders has put forward the outlines of an ‘Outsourcing Prevention Act’. If this was passed, it would punish companies moving jobs out of America. Those corporations that did so would be banned from receiving federal tax breaks, grants or loans, and demand the repayment of any federal perks. The offending companies would also have to pay a tax equal to the amount they saved through the outsourcing, or 35 per cent of their profits, whichever is the greatest amount. The executives would also be banned from receiving bonuses, stock options or golden handshakes.

Kulinski makes it clear that Democrats and progressive should not be prepared to give an inch of cooperation to Trump when he trying to pass any of the massively unjust or racist measures he’s promised, such as deporting undocumented immigrants, registering Muslims and building that wall with Mexico. Kulinski recognises, however, that the latter is rapidly being played down, with Trump himself now claiming that it was mainly metaphorical. When Trump does propose something that will benefit all Americans, rather than just the corporate elite, or racist Whites, they should be prepared to work with him. This proposal is Bernie’s attempt to make sure Trump doesn’t go back on his promise, and actually does something positive for the American people.

We need something similar in this country. Executive pay has massively outstripped ordinary people’s wages and salaries, and companies are outsourcing jobs abroad, including elsewhere in the EU. It has been something of a local issue here in Bristol, where the local chocolate factory, Cadbury’s in Keynsham, a small town between Bath and Bristol, was closed down after it was taken over by Kraft foods. I’ve got a feeling the company then moved the jobs to a new factory in Poland.

I’m not sure how much chance Bernie’s proposal actually has of ever becoming reality. Trump is now very rapidly going back on all of his election promises, appointing Washington insiders and establishment bankers to important cabinet posts. These include some of the very people he personally attacked at his rallies. And even if it had his backing, neoliberal and corporate interests are now so entrenched in both sides of Congress that it would be bitterly attacked and voted down.

And you can imagine how the Conservatives and their paymasters in the CBI would scream and holler if Jeremy Corbyn promised anything similar in the Labour party. They’d almost certainly be joined by the Blairites. After all, Tony Blair said that his administration was ‘extremely relaxed’ about becoming rich, and did so much to promote businessmen to important and lucrative government posts. And vast numbers of MPs, possibility the majority, are managing directors or senior executives of companies, and therefore stand to benefit personally from government policies that boost business at the expense of domestic jobs.

We need to clean up parliament, and remove the corporate interests so that it starts to represent the British people as a whole, and not wealthy businessmen and women. And we do need to prevent further jobs being lost abroad, and punish the firms that make big profits from creating unemployment here in Britain.